Why Put magic Items in The PHB?

[Nifft]

Dunno how they're going to fill the DMG though.

Artifacts.
Unique magical events.
The Planes.

Advice on building the kind of mystery and wonder into your game which doesn't depend on player ignorance.

Cheers, -- N

 

[TwinBahamut]

Yeah... I'm not saying whyb not get rid of them altogether... Just why are they in the PHB... If they're "rewards," shouldn't they be with the rest of the rewards?

I'm wondering if they change the way you can do things, as opposed to allowing you to do things...

Arn't all of the rewards in the PHB?

From what I can count...

Experience is in the PHB
Wealth is in the PHB
Equipment and Gear are in the PHB
Spells (found on scrolls or taught by wise masters) are in the PHB
There are no rules for winning the love and admiration of NPCs...

If you ask me, Magic Items are the one core "reward" that is not in the PHB.

Certainly, the DMG has the rules for giving out rewards, but that is a very different thing than containing the rules for the rewards themselves. Players don't ever need to see the random magic items charts, but there is a good reason for them to see the magic items once they are written on their character sheets.

 

[Imp]

Advice on building the kind of mystery and wonder into your game which doesn't depend on player ignorance.

:: stares blankly ::

Yes. Yes, we will instead build mystery and wonder out of things the players know by heart. You step into a cave. It is shiny and sparkly.

It's not even that awesome mystery and wonder will reside in every magic sword the players find, of course it won't. Or that even mystery and wonder are that necessary and important. It's more of a genre thing. It's that the entire point of "magic" is that it can (if it is interesting) behave in unexpected ways, which is, yes, dependent on player ignorance, and if a person is so wedded to the idea of magic as technology, isn't he really better off playing with imaginary spaceships instead? You can come up with a much neater upgrade system, have all the technology information available to the players, and making "optimized builds" out of equipment setups actually fits in perfectly with the assumptions of the genre.

Whereas in a fantasy game really the only kind of build-optimizing that fits are things like, the expert spear-fighter of the group really ought to get to wield a magic spear of some kind. Yeah, that is pretty nice.

Now, outlining some magic items in the PHB doesn't have to be a bad thing (because magic is magic, and the spells are described there too) as long as it doesn't create the expectation that everything the players are going to come across will be built to a factory standard. Actually, it would be interesting if the DMG listed some alternate attributes for both magic items and spell effects, just to make that sort of thing a tiny bit unpredictable.

Aren't all of the rewards in the PHB?

It's kind of iffy, and possibly irrelevant to 4e, but prestige classes aren't.

 

[Felon]

Those aren't rewards, those are choices available through character advancement.

Experience points are a rewards, and as an extension so are the benefits of lvel advancement.

Not the kind of reward we are talking about. If magic items are the same kind of thing as those abilities gained through level advancement, then those magic items ought to become permanent items belonging to the character bought through character advancement resources. This has never been the case in any edition of D&D.

Experience is a reward. Magic items are a reward. They don't have to be the same kind of reward to fall into the same general category.

And actually, magic items have indeed generally been a character's permanent possession until he decided he didn't want it anymore.

 

[Felon]

And they're doing away with buffs.

They said there will be no more 'Xmas tree effect', which was defined as buffs from both magic items and spells. They're as dead as a very dead thing.

Disinformation alert.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Disinformation alert.

'Disinformation' backed up with a quote. Scott Rouse says it was a goal of the design team to remove buffs. If they're removed then they're gone, done away with. Dead. Not, as Mouse said, merely reworked/reinvisioned.

 

[Felon]

'Disinformation' backed up with a quote. Scott Rouse says it was a goal of the design team to remove buffs. If they're removed then they're gone, done away with. Dead. Not, as Mouse said, merely reworked/reinvisioned.

The quote you posted did not say it was a goal to remove buffs. The quote said it was a goal to remove an effect that stemmed from characters being loaded down with magic items, spell buffs, and other external bonuses.

And it doesn't even appear to be a direct quote, but rather a paraphrasing of something Rouse said live at GenCon.

 

[Nifft]

'Disinformation' backed up with a quote. Scott Rouse says it was a goal of the design team to remove buffs. If they're removed then they're gone, done away with. Dead. Not, as Mouse said, merely reworked/reinvisioned.

"Removing buffs" could mean removing some buffs, removing most buffs, removing all buffs, or removing the absolute dependence on buffs without actually changing the number of available effects, no?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Mercule]

"Removing buffs" could mean removing some buffs, removing most buffs, removing all buffs, or removing the absolute dependence on buffs without actually changing the number of available effects, no?

I'm hoping for door number three, myself. I like the idea of buffs being available but not overwhelmingly potent. It all goes with the idea of there being more than one way to skin the tarrasque.

 

[Jhaelen]

'Disinformation' backed up with a quote. Scott Rouse says it was a goal of the design team to remove buffs. If they're removed then they're gone, done away with. Dead. Not, as Mouse said, merely reworked/reinvisioned.

Let's call it 'misinterpretation' then There have been other quotes of game developers indicating that buffs still exist, although in a different form and/or with different durations.